Sea Level Rise May Nibble Shoreline In Next Century

MERRITT ISLAND — A warning of a 3- to 6-foot rise in the sea level next century has coastal county officials planning for massive erosion problems, floods and destroyed marshland.

''The shoreline in this area will retreat 150 feet for every 1 foot increase in sea level,'' said Jim Titus, a representative of the Environmental Protection Agency who is studying the sea level rise.

''But these are not dire predictions -- they are the essence of our best available projections of a long-range problem,'' he said Friday during a workshop in Merritt Island. ''It's tempting not to think about the problem at all, it's so long-range. But now is the time to start thinking about the problem if we're going to change any of this.''

The sea level rises when carbon dioxide and other gases build up in the atmosphere, trapping heat next to the Earth. Burning fossil fuels and destroying rain forests and other vegetation causes the gases to build up.

The heat produced by the buildup raises the sea level by melting polar icecaps and by warming and expanding the upper layers of oceans. The phenomenon is known as the greenhouse effect because it works like a greenhouse, allowing light in and retaining heat, Titus said.

''The planet will warm 4 degrees Celsius in the next century,'' he said. ''That is as much as the Earth has warmed since the Ice Age.

''With the greenhouse effect, we'll also have changes in precipitation. That could result in an increase in deserts, which could bother us more than an increase in sea level.''

Titus said little has been done to prevent the potential problems. The best solution is to stop putting carbon dioxide into the air.

''Eight years ago the U.S., Canada and Sweden banned the use of fluorocarbons in spray cans. Eventually other countries will too,'' he said.

Titus is traveling the country lecturing on the greenhouse effect. Friday's meeting was called to educate county officials.

Building levees and sea walls, raising land with fill or moving houses away from the shoreline are ways to prepare for the rising sea level. But planning sensibly is the best solution, Titus said.

''Obviously, we don't need to build dams everywhere now, but we also don't want to build housing developments where we may need a dam someday,'' Titus said. ''Research also will have to increase, yet we're in a time when no one wants to increase expenditures for research. The tendency is to say, 'Let's worry about it after we balance the budget.'

''The greenhouse effect stretches our imagination -- we don't want to believe it will happen,'' he said. ''But it's also possible it could be worse than we now think it will be. That's why we need to look for policies that make sense no matter what happens.''